Sylvain Laporte

Sylvain Laporte has been appointed president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), effective March 9th. Laporte's announcement was made in a terse two-sentence statement on February 27th by the Prime Minister's Office. The position has been vacant since November 3/14 following the surprise departure of Walter Natynczyk who was appointed DM of Veteran Affairs after just 15 months at the CSA. Laporte is a former member of the Canadian air force and a senior government official since 1996, most recently as Commissioner of Patents and Registrar of Trademarks. Prior to that, he was executive director of Industry Canada's Industrial Technologies Office which administers the Strategic Aerospace Defence Initiative (SADI) funding program. Laporte also held several positions within the Canada Post Corp between 1998 and 2008. He holds a BSc in computer science and MSc in computer engineering from Royal Military College….